Anyone have their original contract paperwork? I wonder what it says about eligibility for discounted phone upgrades. It bothers me that they can change this unilaterally when on-contract. I'm on Verizon and was supposed to be eligible for an upgrade this Fall, and "My Verizon" still said this was the case a day or two after it was announced they were changing the policy. Now it's been changed to reflect the 24-month upgrade date, of course.

More people I know are going for prepaid plans on BYO phones. You can't do this with nasty carriers that don't allow you to bring your own device, but everyone else allows it and it's a great way to save money.

If you consider the cost of a contract -- $90x24 = $2160, $40 activation fee, $149 for phone, $2,349, it makes buying a phone like the Nexus 4 seem awfully cheap at $299, no activation, plus $30/mo x 24 mo for service if you want 5GB data (total cost $1019).

Remember that you are only allowed use the AT&T so called service as a result of their benevolent magnanimity. It is their network, never mind that all the land lines and the infrastructure were paid by public funds, and they will do as they wish. Add new (and, give them credit, creative) charges to your bill if they feel like it as they did last month, change the upgrade terms whenever they reach agreement with other vendors to eliminate any appearance of competition, and whatever else they will come up with.But think of it as serving a good cause - your money is well spent, first giving jobs to all the servants in the executives' mansions, supporting the financial industry with their huge investments accounts, then, of course, keeping all these campaign contributions flowing so our lawmakers can make sure to serve the right constituencies.When you look at the big picture, you should really be thanking them for such a great public service.

This is interesting, since I thought the whole point of the early upgrade was to not leave people out of contract, since if you are out of contract, it's much easier to cross-shop between AT&T and Verizon and whoever else. I guess they decided that stuff like Mobile Share is making it less likely that people would jump ship, and those extra four months of subsidies make up for any losses.

I will never understand the attraction some people feel for a "push to talk" feature. Every phone has that feature. It's called "making a phone call." The idea that I want someone's voice squawking out of my phone at random — when they happen to choose to speak — strikes me as bizarre.

i don't understand why the headline says "forces customers to wait two years" when you then quote ATT saying:

"Once you’ve completed six months or more of your Service Commitment, you qualify for partial discount off the full retail price when you sign a new two-year wireless agreement," isn't this the way it has always worked? or were those last 4 months a full "didn't already have an agreement" type discount?

I will never understand the attraction some people feel for a "push to talk" feature. Every phone has that feature. It's called "making a phone call." The idea that I want someone's voice squawking out of my phone at random — when they happen to choose to speak — strikes me as bizarre.

Think of professional drivers, construction crews, etc. It's so one device can pull double duty as a walkie talkie.

I will never understand the attraction some people feel for a "push to talk" feature. Every phone has that feature. It's called "making a phone call." The idea that I want someone's voice squawking out of my phone at random — when they happen to choose to speak — strikes me as bizarre.

No, it's for specific use cases. For example, event management, job sites, driver pools.. anyplace where you need to be able to talk to a team at once. For example, you are the manager for a team of 8 drivers who are shuttling people around a conference; you want them to be able to communicate with the whole team at once, instead of calling each person.

It's a walkie-talkie replacement, not a phone call replacement, with the added benefit of being cheaper (no need to buy radio infrastructure, which can be expensive, people can use their existing device) being able to define teams, and a bunch of other features that walkie talkies don't have.

Obvious drawback is that PTT relies on a cellular signal being available, so they can't completely replace walkie-talkies. Still, there are many places where that isn't an issue.

He's talking about Voxer, one of a variety of similar programs, and it can be set to use your volume down button to talk. But you do have to have voxer open AFAIK. It's not really like a walkie-talkie -- it's more like sending a voice message that you access like a text message.

Sometimes you have to try it to understand it. I actually like it quite a bit for longer more common conversations, because delays in response are okay or you can talk quickly taking turns like the normal flow of a conversation.

I will never understand the attraction some people feel for a "push to talk" feature. Every phone has that feature. It's called "making a phone call." The idea that I want someone's voice squawking out of my phone at random — when they happen to choose to speak — strikes me as bizarre.

Just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean there isn't a use for it. Why do you think people still by two-way-radios? If I'm outside with both of my hands busy, I want to immediately know what my coworker is telling me. I don't want to be wasting precious minutes answering the call. I don't want to be wasting phone minutes in idle time. And if there's a 3rd person who needs to know what's going on, that's even more difficult. 4 people? Forget it.

Also, clearly, AT&T is dead set on balancing out Google's "Do No Evil" motto.

I will never understand the attraction some people feel for a "push to talk" feature. Every phone has that feature. It's called "making a phone call." The idea that I want someone's voice squawking out of my phone at random — when they happen to choose to speak — strikes me as bizarre.

Think of professional drivers, construction crews, etc. It's so one device can pull double duty as a walkie talkie.

This. It's certainly aimed to a niche demographic. I did know some folks that had Nextel phones they adored because of push-to-talk. It's pretty nice for people you contact frequently; family members and whatnot, and it's pretty useful when hiking, camping, etc. It's not something, in personal life, I would use frequently, though.

Easy. No cash on hand for an iPhone or galaxy or one. Flagship phones are expensive.

In the case of AT&T and Verizon, why would anyone pay full price? You don't get a discount on the monthly fees for doing so, whereas you get a hefty discount on the price of the device if you buy the phone subsidized and sign a contract.

I have AT&T Family plan and still have iPhone 4. So my contract has been up, but we are still paying the full AT&T rate. If I upgrade, the monthly rate doesn't change but I get $450 off the cost of the phone. But after the contract is up, you still pay the full rate. That's when the cell providers make money.

Easy. No cash on hand for an iPhone or galaxy or one. Flagship phones are expensive.

Last year's flagship phone is always available for a steep discount (or two years' ago if you're really skint like me).

Just a single year of running last year's flagship off-contract would save you enough to buy next year's flagship; then going forwards you can buy and resell the flagship every year and always have the latest phone plus save $500-odd every year, as LJ pointed out - unlike the people on two year contract cycles.

I will never understand the attraction some people feel for a "push to talk" feature. Every phone has that feature. It's called "making a phone call." The idea that I want someone's voice squawking out of my phone at random — when they happen to choose to speak — strikes me as bizarre.

No, it's for specific use cases. For example, event management, job sites, driver pools.. anyplace where you need to be able to talk to a team at once. For example, you are the manager for a team of 8 drivers who are shuttling people around a conference; you want them to be able to communicate with the whole team at once, instead of calling each person.

It's a walkie-talkie replacement, not a phone call replacement, with the added benefit of being cheaper (no need to buy radio infrastructure, which can be expensive, people can use their existing device) being able to define teams, and a bunch of other features that walkie talkies don't have.

Obvious drawback is that PTT relies on a cellular signal being available, so they can't completely replace walkie-talkies. Still, there are many places where that isn't an issue.

One thing I'd add--The reason Nextel's service (PTT) was so popular among service and construction firms was that it had a range of hundreds of miles, far greater than any walkie talkie. For some outfits I was involved with (with projects covering considerable distances), this was a major selling point.

With current technology, it probably can be augmented by using local WiFi repeaters in areas with spotty wireless coverage.

Which reminds me--some of the firms deemed Nextel's PTT essential, but their customer service and phone service were so poor, staff normally carried two company-supplied devices--the Nextel (PTT only) and another major carrier (say, Verizon) for calls.

I don't understand why people buy phones on contract. It's like a tax on stupidity.

Because TMobile is the only US carrier that doesn't include the cost of the phone subsidy in the monthly price, and that's only happened in the last year. Unless you are on TMobile with their new plans, you are throwing that subsidy money down the drain unless you get a subsidised phone.

Quote:

I will never understand the attraction some people feel for a "push to talk" feature. Every phone has that feature. It's called "making a phone call." The idea that I want someone's voice squawking out of my phone at random — when they happen to choose to speak — strikes me as bizarre.

It's typically used in a work environment as a replacement for walkie-talkies. It's an important feature for some big corporate contracts.

I don't understand why people buy phones on contract. It's like a tax on stupidity.

Edit: Ninja'd!

Some people can't afford it unlocked. Others are forced to because of where they live. For instance, I was considering switching to virgin but found that they hardly covered anywhere in the city where I live. Same went for the other prepaid carriers.

Remember that you are only allowed use the AT&T so called service as a result of their benevolent magnanimity. It is their network, never mind that all the land lines and the infrastructure were paid by public funds, and they will do as they wish. Add new (and, give them credit, creative) charges to your bill if they feel like it as they did last month, change the upgrade terms whenever they reach agreement with other vendors to eliminate any appearance of competition, and whatever else they will come up with.But think of it as serving a good cause - your money is well spent, first giving jobs to all the servants in the executives' mansions, supporting the financial industry with their huge investments accounts, then, of course, keeping all these campaign contributions flowing so our lawmakers can make sure to serve the right constituencies.When you look at the big picture, you should really be thanking them for such a great public service.

AT&T Wireless was known as McCaw Cellular Communications, Inc. until 1994 purchase by AT&T .

I prefer cell phone manufacturers to make better phones less often. I'm already eligible for an upgrade, but I've been so hesitant to pull the trigger on a new phone due to there always being a "better" phone coming just around the corner.

I prefer cell phone manufacturers to make better phones less often. I'm already eligible for an upgrade, but I've been so hesitant to pull the trigger on a new phone due to there always being a "better" phone coming just around the corner.

I have about 20 Galaxy S3's with the AT&T PTT service on them at work, I'll comment that the service is really quite good - near instant communication and the reliability is better than the free options. This is in an LTE service area.

As others have noted, it is dependent on having a cellular signal, but it also works over wifi.

Cost is $5 a month per device, and with heavy group communications they all seem to use about 100-150mb of data per month.

Nice. Not like there is anything we can do about it. Its looking more like the cable company Oligopoly situation.

It is an oligopoly. Our best hope is that T-Mobile and Sprint buy up most of the 600Mhz spectrum on auction in 2014 and can move quickly to deploy cells using that spectrum to improve coverage and become more competitive. But that's still years away. Or maybe Charlie Ergen (Dish Network) will start his own cell phone company with his AWS-4 spectrum and buy some 600MHz spectrum and get a chunk of Clearwire BRS spectrum and go from there.

I have AT&T Family plan and still have iPhone 4. So my contract has been up, but we are still paying the full AT&T rate. If I upgrade, the monthly rate doesn't change but I get $450 off the cost of the phone. But after the contract is up, you still pay the full rate. That's when the cell providers make money.

Yes, the smart thing to do in this situation is to buy a new flagship phone the soonest you possibly can, and sell it if you don't need it.

I hope that the Softbank buyout of T-Mo goes through (if it hasn't already been approved, haven't been keeping track) and that Softbank aggressively rolls out towers.

If T-mobile had better coverage, I'd jump ship in a short heartbeat. As it is, due to coverage issues (even areas where T-mo "has coverage", they often don't have coverage) I have to stick with AT&T or (currently) Verizon.

AT&T and Verizon certainly appear to be in collusion, they are both turning the screws on their customers in exactly the same way - share everything plans, no early upgrades, when one does something, the other is not far behind.

It would be fine if it was the #2 and #4 company doing this shit, but it's #1 and #2.

(a) People who don't want to fork-out upfront/can't afford to perhaps: they go on 24mth contract. (b) People who don't want a contract/can afford to buy full price £700 phone outright: they go on sim-only (or pay-as-you-go, with some caveats on usage).

The package (b) is usually a bit cheaper to the user, and they can change handset any time THEY CHOOSE. Whilst package (a) users who have to accept the downside is COMPLETION OF CONTRACT before moving/upgrading. Hardly rocket science: buy outright cash or hire-purchase finance contract.

The trouble is in the US you have less carriers offering SIM-ONLY deals — so you're effectively forced to do (a) whether you like it or not, if you want to use some of the carriers in some areas.

Competition rules in the EU make this happen, along with more competition in the marketplace. Go lobby your congressman if you want your carriers to not be able to hold you to ransom with such little choice.